A woman who weighed 14 stone as a child before she even reached double figures says losing weight unlocked “pretty privilege” – with strangers being “nicer in every way” and men rushing to hold doors open for her.
Susan McGinnis says she can’t remember a time she wasn’t ashamed of her size, after being bullied from the age of six.
At her heaviest, Susan weighed 28 stone and wore a size 26.
The 28-year-old struggled to fit into restaurant booths, theme park rides and even plastic garden chairs, fearing they would collapse beneath her weight.
But after losing a whopping 15 stone, Susan says her new look has opened her eyes to the reality of “pretty privilege”.
“People are nicer to me in every way,” Susan, an astrologer and medico-legal worker from Sydney, Australia, told Need To Know.
“I don’t feel eyes on me anymore and if I do feel them on me, it doesn’t feel like they’re looking down on me anymore.
“It’s the opposite.
“I feel like I can see appreciative looks when I walk past people, eyes linger longer, people compliment my perfume or my outfit or my glasses.
“Even being served at a café counter is different.
“The staff are more willing to help, provide menus and offer suggestions.
“I’m able to order something and not feel opinions through someone’s facial expressions or order something less nutritious and not feeling guilty about it.
“People genuinely don’t consider how readable their faces can be.
“Men are nicer – I never realised how many people can hold a door open for you.
“It feels like I’ve attained pretty privilege.
“Waiters are nicer, servers are more willing to help and staff in stores approach me more.
“My husband says even he notices the difference with customer service, as if there is more inclination for people to assist me now.
“Previously I never got approached or offered any help until I got right to a counter.
“My husband notices that people flirt with me more.
“When I went out with friends before losing weight, I didn’t exist as an option to talk to, even in a friendly manner.
“Men could be quite rude if I tried to engage in group conversations, now I go out for drinks and finally understand why women get irritated or even scared when they go out.
“I recently went out for drinks and briefly made eye contact with a man across the room while standing with two other women and he came over just because I looked in his direction?
“That kind of behaviour is still something I’m getting used to even after looking like this for a few years now.
“Growing up basically being spat at by men it’s been almost a disorientating experience.
“With feeling scared, I never felt scared of being assaulted or worse when I was out with friends or walking alone at night, I didn’t feel like a target in any capacity.
“It’s messed up to say, but I genuinely would think ‘I’m too fat to be a sexualised target’.
“It’s things that feel like general social etiquette and common courtesy.
“I never realised until it started happening how much it wasn’t happening.
“Before, I could feel the stares in public and heaps of people made comments as I was growing up.
“I felt like I could feel stares while getting groceries, whatever I put in my trolley or on the conveyor belt felt like I was being judged.
“Whatever I ordered at a restaurant felt like a mockery for the back of house staff.
“If I went to get take away and walked in to sit down, it felt like other patrons were laughing in my direction or every conversation was about me.
“When I got to my biggest ever weight, people treated me differently – it was kind of passive aggression or not looking directly at me.
“I remember I was the butt of a joke in high school where some popular girls got one of their boyfriends to message me and ask to meet me at a location in the school to hang out, and when I arrived everyone just started laughing because ‘why would anyone want to date you’.”
But Susan has had the last laugh, after having a huge overhaul of her health and lifestyle.
She nows weighs 13 stone after having a gastric sleeve, a gastric bypass and using weight loss jabs.
Her problems with food began in childhood, where she would often comfort eat and secretly snack, leading her to weigh 14 stone by the time she was just nine years old.
She said: “I don’t remember a time in my life I wasn’t aware of it or didn’t feel self-conscious – even being five or six and realising I was bigger than the other little kids.
“Around age nine is when I became extremely self-conscious and aware of my weight.
“I was already having clothes bought from the women’s section and don’t really remember any time that I got to shop and look at girl clothes’.
“When I was 11 or 12, I remember I went on a three-day school camp, and they needed everyone’s weight and I was 17 stone, and my mum said to me ‘are you really that heavy?’.
“She was shocked.
“There were never any interventions by school to my knowledge.
“I remember a doctor had shamed me around eight or nine for being overweight with my mum in the room but I don’t recall anything else.
“It’s weird that no one said anything.”
While her mum tried to put her on diets, nothing was effective, and Susan’s weight continued to spiral.
Susan was secretly eating huge portions, sometimes consuming three plates of food in one sitting.
She said: “I was incredibly lonely as a child and often used food and TV as a way to self-soothe.
“One time when I was about 17, I ate two double quarter pounder burgers by stacking the meat together and turned it into a four patty burger.
“I thought it was the greatest idea I ever had.
“Of course, I had it in a meal with coke and large fries too.
“I ate it in one sitting and then had to lay down for a nap afterwards.
“Often, I would eat a full-sized meal, meat, veggies, carbs, a serving of dessert and then go out and buy a large take away meal consisting of a double patty burger and an ice cream.”
Susan says she indulged in cereal, sandwiches, cheese spread or anything her mum told her was “off limits”.
She said: “I started to hide my eating from my mum and grandmother.
“When I tried to shop at normal clothes shops with a friend, even the XXXL didn’t fit me.
“My self-esteem was plummeting rapidly, my eating was out of control, and I started to get very angry at the world.”
By 21, she decided something had to change after seeing for the first time on the scales that she’d reached 28 stone.
She also hoped to become a mum after meeting her husband Zach, 30, on Tinder in 2016.
Susan said: “It was pretty confronting if and I was growing more depressed and unhappy.
“I had no real quality of life and I had no clothes I felt good or comfortable in
“All I ever really wanted was to reach a size 16.
“I also wanted to regulate my periods and get pregnant, there was no way I’d be able to have a healthy pregnancy or labour being the size I was.
“They were concerned about giving medications during pregnancy, birth options, if a caesarean was necessary then it could have been complicated as well.”
She underwent a £1,500 gastric sleeve surgery in 2019 after years of failed diets and unsuccessful attempts to lose weight naturally.
Although she initially lost four stone before the operation through dieting and three stone after, Susan says she still felt out of control around food.
Two years later, she underwent a second operation, converting her sleeve into a £4,700 gastric bypass.
The weight quickly fell away and she shed eight stone, but the emotional struggles remained.
She was diagnosed with binge eating disorder and atypical anorexia – and realised therapy, not just surgery, would be the key to changing her life.
Susan said: “I was confused because being thin was supposed to fix everything, but it was like a fog had been lifted and all these issues underneath the weight loss had finally been revealed and hit me like a truck.
“This is when the real therapy started because there was no weight to blame on my behaviour anymore and I did consistent weekly psych sessions for two years and that was life changing.”
After giving birth to her daughter Faewyne, two, in June 2024, Susan regained around six stone and found herself struggling once again.
She started the weight loss jab, Wegovy, and has shed the weight once more to become a healthy, comfortable size 12.
Susan said: “Now, I feel lighter, in every sense of the word.
“I feel amazing.
“The concept of listening to what my body needs never felt achievable and the other day I had a craving for mushrooms and recently I had a blood test and I’m quite vitamin D deficient.
“What nutrients do mushrooms have? Vitamin D.
“It’s messages like that from my body that I could never truly hear because I was never in tune with my brain body connection and I can do that now.
“When I eat less nutritious food and I feel sluggish after, I listen to that rather than continuing to just eat it or I choose another food to add with it that helps balance it out.
“Health is something I used to really take for granted and being in a place where I experience good health every day is important to me.”
Now, Susan focuses on balance rather than restriction and enjoys reformer Pilates a few times a week while walking whenever she can.
She said: “I eat a lot less take aways and fast food, but I do visit cafes and restaurants more.
“I eat to live; I don’t live to eat.
“Now when I eat, I try to eat nutritional foods alongside something less nutritional – so if I’m eating chips, I have low fat cheese and cucumbers with it.”
Looking back, Susan says she’d urge anyone struggling with their weight to seek support beyond dieting alone.
She added: “Invest in yourself, in every sense of the word.
“Go to therapy, be healthy for you, not your husband, not your kids, not your family, you.
“Look at your weight loss like a symptom, not a goal and look at injections or bariatric surgeries like tools not miracle machines.
“To take care of your body is to respect your body.
“Find a good gym, not a gym with fluorescent lights and 100 treadmills, but a gym that focuses on wellness too.
“Find an exercise you enjoy doing, you must reframe your mindset about exercising – you get to do it, you don’t have to do it.
“Get a psych, find a good everyday doctor, develop a medical care team that knows you, cares for you and is available for years.
“Nurture yourself like you would a child, a plant, sit with your past experiences, sit with the child version of you.
“And lastly, you didn’t get big overnight, you will not get smaller overnight.
“This takes time, new habits take time and when, not if they come back, it doesn’t mean you’re off track, it’s all part of the journey.”
DIET BEFORE
Breakfast: Three or four eggs, two to four pieces toast, a whole avocado and bacon
Lunch: A double quarter pounder large meal, coke, McFlurry, cheeseburger or chicken and cheese on the side
Dinner: A large home cooked meal, of meat, vegetables then a large double patty burger meal with fries
Snacks: Crisps, biscuits and leftover dinner
DIET AFTER
Breakfast: Coffee and a muesli bar or half a portion of eggs and avocado on toast
Lunch: A sandwich or salmon sushi
Dinner: A protein, two vegetables and a diet coke or protein pasta and. homemade pasta sauce
Snacks: Bananas, cheese sticks, coffee or sweet chilli crisps
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